NVFC: Quantity of Volunteers is Down

According to this report released at NVFC.org, there were 44,000 fewer volunteer firefighters in 2010 compared to 2009, a reduction of 5.4 percent, according to the U.S. Fire Department Profile Through 2010, an annual report that was recently issued by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The loss of volunteers is primarily coming in communities with populations of 2,500 or fewer, which were protected by 377,550 firefighters in 2010 compared with 408,550 in 2009, a drop of approximately 7.6 percent.

[Read the balance of the article here.]

Without reading the entire study, one could wonder whether or not those numbers are a bad thing or just a truer reflection of the real number of volunteers directly involved in firefighting, not just total number of active and inactive members of volunteer fire departments. If you read on in the NVFC article you’ll learn that while the total numbers are going down, the average age of those left behind is going up. That’s a real issue we need to address immediately and constantly.

“Day in the Life” Shows Service, Sacrifice

This great video from the Pontiac Michigan Fire Department depicts a day in the life of their firefighters, from leaving the house and their family in the morning to returning hours later to their loved ones.

Tastefully done, I think it’s one of the best videos I’ve seen that demonstrates the service of America’s firefighters and recognizes our families who make real sacrifices on our behalf so that we can do what we love to do. I’m not sure of its origin or if it was created just for the video but the voice-over is superb and includes a great motivational message, apparently intended for this fire department that is going through some its darkest times facing the deepest cuts possible. We wish only the best for them in their fight to save their ability to protect their community.

Check it out and let the FireRECRUITER know what you think and be sure to share your fire department recruitment and promotional videos and resources.

FEMA Provides Youth-Based Workshops

Leading educators and scholars in the field of preparedness education consider our nation’s youth to be the best envoy for taking preparedness messages home to their families. In order to better prepare our nation’s youth to bring preparedness home, FEMA is providing technical assistance workshops to state and local practitioners who support youth-based programs and who are interested in integrating preparedness education into their offerings.

Is this Our Best Approach?

This article was originally published November 29, 2009 at www.TigerSchmittendorf.com. Rather than keep creating new posts on this subject, I intend to re-publish this post as opportunity presents itself to learn from best — and not exactly our best — practices in motivating members of the public to join our ranks.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

11/13/11 – In this week’s installment of “Is this our best approach?” we look at a news clip covering the recruitment and retention challenges of the Fremont County Volunteer Fire Service in Kinnear, Wyoming. The piece starts out with good intentions as a firefighter describes why he volunteers and how he and the community mutually benefit. Unfortunately, like so many other videos and news articles on the subject, this video wraps up with another firefighter or officer outlining all the reasons people aren’t volunteering today.

Can you rise to the challenge?

An article posted to FirefighterNation.com today outlines the challenges faced by volunteer fire departments in Pennsylvania in recruiting and retaining their members. Although these types of articles are becoming all too frequent, this one in particular is better than most in that it focuses on the positives of being a volunteer firefighter — not all the negatives. I’ve cited many examples of what not to say if you’re actually looking to solve your R&R challenges in a previous post titled “Is this our best approach?” Too often, we hand a prospective candidate all of the reasons and excuses why they wouldn’t join on a silver platter.

Digital Recruitment and Retention

Burlington Township (NJ) Firefighter Matt Stahlnecker checks his mobile device while returning from a run on Rescue 30. Photo by: Tiger Schmittendorf

The world is changing rapidly and the fire service is getting caught up in the tornado effect of technology on our society.

More and more fire departments are smartly using web sites, e-mail and social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter to recruit new firefighters, share life safety information and to stay connected to their community. There isn’t much you can’t do with a mobile device today that took a super-computer to do less than 30 years ago.

And while we’re making strides in keeping our folks safer on the incident scene, there’s probably few bigger challenges today than to keep your folks out of trouble on social networks and the Internet. Sometimes ‘retention’ in the fire service devolves to preventing our people from doing stupid stuff.

I recently had the opportunity to facilitate a conversation titled: “From the Xbox to the Box Alarm” with a large group of fire instructors  for the University of Kansas Fire and Rescue Institute wherein we discussed today’s and tomorrow’s generation of firefighters. The conversation focused not only on the challenges in understanding, motivating, training and leading this unique cadre of individuals, but also enlightened the participants as to the tremendous potential they possess for moving our fire service forward.

And, naturally, you can’t have a conversation about today’s generation of firefighters without discussing the importance of technology and the impact of social networking.

I had the daunting task of following a presentation by Curt Varone, an accomplished

Lots to Tweet About

Check out Burlington Township (NJ) Volunteer Fire Department's new pub ed banners

There’s been plenty to tweet about lately regarding recruitment and retention in the fire service. Some of the info shared is good news and some is bad news, regardless, it all contains lessons we can learn from. Sometimes there’s so much activity and so much being shared, that it’s tough for even someone as “connected” as I am to keep up with.

With many fire prevention activities wrapping up for the month of October, many fire departments took advantage of the added exposure to share and maximize their volunteering, public education and public relations opportunities; including the Burlington Township Volunteer Fire Department which the FireRECRUITER has been working with for the past six months. The featured photo shows off the new banners they’ve created for their successful pub ed efforts — which are smartly and directly linked to their recruitment efforts.

Some of my Tweets are original finds I stumble upon while others are retweets of others’ discoveries. Nonttheless, in case you missed them, here are some of the highlights of recent tweets with plenty of examples of what does and doesn’t work in in recruiting, motivating, leading, training and retaining today’s firefighters. Follow the links for great reads, resources, tips and tricks.

We’ve been waiting for you!

“We have been waiting for you!” — That’s the theme of the recruitment campaign promoted by the Depew Fire Department here in Erie County NY. Their banner at one of the busiest intersections in Western New York caught my eye today while traveling to a meeting.

The slogan invokes the idea that if you’re reading their banner, it’s your turn to step up and serve.

Sign Up Now and Share Your Secrets!

Young Blood: Newton Abbott Captain Josh Taylor at a recent fire in Orchard Park NY. ©2011 FireRECRUITER.com

Subscribe to FireRECRUITER.com before August 15, 2011 and we will email you ”Tiger’s Top 10 Commandments for Recruitment and Retention” and the “Official Recruiter’s Cheat Sheet” just for signing up.

Once you’ve read my secrets, share your recruitment secrets at VolunteerMatch.org’s Facebook App and “Like” my ‘first commandment’ entry posted on July 28, 2011.

If you’ve never used VolunteerMatch as a recruitment tool, we highly recommend it as we’ve frequently receive quality leads at www.erie.gov/fire.

Satisfied with Success

I recently received this email from a fire department who found the resources at FireRECRUITER.com to be helpful to them in their recruitment and retention efforts. Perhaps it will inspire others to make a go of it and invest the time and energy into writing a SAFER grant application and in general, do something about their “situation.”

Here’s what they had to say:

Tiger,

Hope all is well. Here at Bellevue we are hitting recruitment & retention harder then ever. We recently received the SAFER grant and have used it for helping out in retention but along with that, we started our marketing.

In the next week we will have billboards up for a couple months and we are doing a postcard mailing to all of our residents, lawn signs, business cards. We created a prospective member guide and will be launching a brand new website. What we plan on doing is going through our neighborhoods to stop and talk with young people and hand them an application if they’re interested. We also set up a recruitment hotline.

Your website was a huge help to us.

Gabe Casucci
Bellevue Volunteer Fire Dept.
http://bellevuefire.org/
Recruiter